Book Talk: Making Social Spending Work New Book by Affiliate Peter Lindert
The Economic History Seminar and the Center for Poverty &
Inequality Research are happy to announce a talk to launch the
new book by Center affiliate Peter Lindert
Making Social Spending Work
(Cambridge University Press, April 2021)
How does social spending relate to economic growth and which
countries have got this right and wrong? Peter Lindert examines
the experience of countries across the globe to reveal what has
worked, what needs changing, and who the winners and losers are
under different systems. He traces the development of public
education, health care, pensions, and welfare provision, and
addresses key questions around intergenerational inequality and
fiscal redistribution, the returns to investment in human
capital, how to deal with an aging population, whether migration
is a cost or a benefit, and how social spending differs in
autocracies and democracies. The book shows that what we need to
do above all is to invest more in the young from cradle to
career, and shift the burden of paying for social insurance away
from the workplace and to society as a whole.
The talk will be by Zoom, Tuesday April 6, 4:10-5:30 at the link
below.
Peter Lindert’s current research focuses on the causes and
effects of modern fiscal redistribution and the history of
inequality, political voice and economic growth.
